JAKARTA — Communities on an island in eastern Indonesia increasingly support the idea of a marine protected area in an effort to reverse declining fish stocks in their waters. A…
Seventy-six countries and the European Union have now signed the high seas treaty, signaling interest in ratifying the agreement designed to protect marine biodiversity in international waters. The signing of…
MALIKO’MIJK, Canada — Decades ago, the sea around Maliko’mijk Island was an expansive green carpet of eelgrass, the meadows so thick that members of the Pictou Landing First Nation had…
SUMENEP, Indonesia — Fisherwomen on Indonesia’s Madura Island are at the forefront of a protest against a plan to convert a stretch of their coast into salt farming in their…
New data suggest that the extraction of sand from marine environments — known as “sand mining” — is happening at an unsustainable rate across the world. However, experts say there…
When the sustainable development community gathers in New York on September 18-19 it would do well to answer an important call. Our ocean is calling for our help — and…
JAKARTA — In early September, a whale shark washed up on a beach in the Indonesian province of West Java. Within hours, locals had chopped up the 7-meter (23-foot) fish…
Riding his bike to work in the Netherlands’ Zeeland province, Tjeerd Bouma passed fields of pear and apple trees. His mind wandered. As a coastal ecologist at the Royal Netherlands…
SUMENEP, Indonesia — Small-scale fishers in Indonesia’s Masalembu Islands have filed a petition to the government calling for the establishment of an exclusive fishing zone off-limits to larger trawlers that…
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — A moratorium on deep-sea mining established by a group of Pacific island nations has struck a blow to the Solwara 1 project in Papua…
The Icelandic government has announced that commercial whaling can resume after the activity was suspended for more than two months. In June, Svandís Svavarsdóttir, the country’s minister of food, agriculture…
BATAM, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities have called on their counterparts in neighboring Singapore to crack down on the illegal lobster larvae trade, given that the city-state is a key hub…
In September 2022, researchers at BC Whales, a Canadian research nonprofit studying cetaceans in the north of British Columbia province, gasped when they saw a drone image of a humpback…
KAVIENG, Papua New Guinea — Papua New Guinea’s minister for mining confirmed in early August that a deep-sea mining company would once again be looking to mine the seafloor under…
JAKARTA — A quota-based fisheries management system that the Indonesian government introduced earlier this year has already run up against opposition for undermining the role of local authorities and fishing…
DHAKA — Abdus Sobur is a small fisherman with a simple formula for success: “Catch those mud crabs, both male and female, and sell them to the local dealer at…
Guanabara Bay, the historic gateway to Rio de Janeiro, is both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most polluted coastal ecosystems in the world. It sees 18,000…
LAMONGAN, Indonesia — The Brondong Fisheries Port in Indonesia’s East Java province was busy on a Friday morning in February as workers worked as swiftly as possible to unload the…
Foreign tuna fishing companies, mostly from Asia, have been exploiting Madagascar’s waters since the 1950s. The bloc that is now the European Union joined the hunt in 1986 and didn’t…
Less than 3% of the world’s oceans are currently protected. Conservationists say that figure needs to hit 30% to prevent major diversity loss and climate change. But marine conservation can…
A multidisciplinary team of researchers comparing bone samples from ancient turtles with skin samples from modern-day green turtles have been able to trace the “food footprints” of this endangered species.…
KINGSTON, Jamaica — In November, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France was calling for an international ban on deep-sea mining, a proposed activity that has received much attention due to…
JAKARTA — Uncontrolled burning of plastic waste on Indonesian beaches has given rise to plastic-rock hybrids that deposit in and may pollute coastal ecosystems and fisheries, a new study has…
Once a nursery for marine life, Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro is now dying from the dumping of thousands of liters of sewage into its waters; artisanal fishermen now survive by picking up the garbage that floats in the bay.
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Negotiations broke down at deep-sea mining meetings that recently took place in Jamaica, exposing deep rifts within the International Seabed Authority, the U.N.-associated body tasked with governing…
TRAPANG ROPOV, Cambodia — Trudging through a tangle of mangrove roots and muddy water, Taing Kry grimaced and howled as he and a partner shifted the weight of a 120-kilogram…
KINGSTON, Jamaica — On July 21, nations reached an agreement that will make it more difficult for deep-sea mining to start immediately in international waters, while not fully halting the…
WEST SERAM, Indonesia — It’s a sunny day off the coast of Piru village on the island district of West Seram, in Indonesia’s Maluku province. La Samiun and his wife…
Two huge fishing vessels make their way through the icy waters of the Southern Ocean, passing among a pod of dozens of whales while slowly hauling on board bulging nets…
The marine biodiversity hotspot known as the Coral Triangle is home to more than 76% of the world's known coral species and more than 3,000 species of fish. It sustains…
